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Friday, October 9, 2015

Strange Stars A-To-Z: "D" is for Deaders

Strange Stars is versatile; you can bring to it whatever other SF influences and ideas feel right for your campaign. I see a lot of people make comparisons between the look of Strange Stars, and their favorite SF games of yesteryear like Star Frontiers. I imagine that many people will pull races from Star Frontiers and adapt them to whatever ruleset they use for their Strange Stars game.

One of the races I'm going pull in to my Strange Stars games from now on are the Deaders from the Savage Worlds Science Fiction Companion and The Last Parsec campaign setting. Deaders are great! They are people who were paid in advance to lease their future corpses to small alien parasites.

Those alien slugs reconnect to the dead human's nervous system, and reamimate the corpse - to a certain extent.

The corpse has to be contained within a sealed suit which is pumped full of preservatives to stop or slow the rotting. From the poster above, it's pretty clear that some humans find them unsettling, and that Deaders clearly face some degree of discrimination.

I wouldn't want to share a bunk or a shower with one, but otherwise I'd be happy to crew with one. They're pretty chill, no-drama types, if a little clumsy and slow.

Very soon now, YOU may have a Deader signing-on with your crew.

What follows is a clade template for a necrosophont inspired by the Deader. They might even be called a Deader. But not to their face, I hope. But that's kind of rude.

OGL MECHANICS

Necrosophont

(Alien Parasitic Reanimate)

Sophont Type: Biologic

ASPECTS:

Alien parasite, human corpse

Leaks are a problem

"Deader" is such a rude term

Cold and logical

Slow and clumsy

SKILLS: Academics, Engineering, Science, Will

STUNTS:

Dead Reckoning: Your spacesuit isn't the only thing that can spring a leak. Chemical changes in your host's necrotic brain periodically fire-up long idle synapses. You can temporaily gain deep insights into what the humans around you are thinking. Spend 1 FP to use Will for one Scene as if you had the Telepathy stunt from the Strange Stars Fate Edition Rulebook.

Science Officer: You are normally so cold and logical that many sophonts think you are a bit callous. You can use your detached, dispassionate, and harsh demeanor to intimidate, scare, or unsettle adversaries. Use Science in place of Provoke to make mental attacks.

About Me

Last and First Men

"In your day you have learnt to calculate something of the magnitudes of space and time. But to grasp my theme in its true proportions, it is necessary to do more than calculate. It is necessary to brood upon these magnitudes, to draw out the mind toward them, to feel the littleness of your here and now, and of the moment of civilization you call history." - Olaf Stapledon